The Knicks have been resilient all season long — you knew they weren’t going to just roll over after being punched in the mouth by the Celtics in a Game 3 blowout loss on their own homecourt.
However, Game 4 did start on a similar note — as was the case just a few days ago, Boston simply couldn’t miss from the beginning and the Knicks got off to an extremely slow start on the offensive end.
Led by the red-hot shooting of Jayson Tatum and Derrick White, the Celtics opened a double-digit advantage less than five minutes into the game.
“Early on there was a lot of miscommunication in transition,” Mikal Bridges said. “White was getting a lot of open looks — having the early struggled offensively, we can’t let that happen on the other end.”
New York would answer back time and time again, but they simply could not put together multiple stops and a sustained run, and again found themselves trailing by as many as 13 points early in the second half.
Then, late in the third, things changed — the Knicks had the MSG crowd rocking as they captured all of the momentum and opened their first lead since the second quarter heading into the final frame.
As has been the case all season long, Jalen Brunson shined the most during clutch time, going bucket for bucket with Tatum before the Celtics’ superstar power forward left with a non-contact lower-body injury.
Bridges and OG Anunoby were tremendous defensively and made some huge baskets of their own down the stretch — helping the Knicks hold on for a massive 121-113 victory.
“They hit us early, but I love the way we fought back,” Tom Thibodeau said. “We showed a lot of toughness and more discipline in the second half and then timely play with everyone working together on both ends of the floor. It starts with the defense — you have a lot of toughness and you have to do it together.”
So now, New York finds themselves heading back on the road to TD Garden just one win away from eliminating the defending champs and advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time since 2000.
Only 13 teams have been able to pull off that comeback in NBA history — no one has done it since Denver did so twice back in 2020 — and the Celtics may have to do so without Tatum pending the results of his MRI.
Still, the Knicks know the job is far from complete.
“The toughest game is the one to closeout someone’s season,” Karl-Anthony Towns said.
“We’ve got to go into this next game with a sense of desperation,” Josh Hart added. “We need a sense of urgency from the jump. We have to stop giving up leads in the first quarter and doing those kind of things — we just have to keep getting better.”
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